The Price of Reputation in Early Seattle
A local editor defends the city's power brokers against 'malicious' newspaper attacks, arguing that persistent personal vituperation drives away the capital needed for infrastructure.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
To put no higher consideration upon it than simply as a matter of public policy, the habit of personal detraction is most damaging to the material interests of any community. The character of no citizen of a commonwealth can be assailed without injury to the whole. In our own Territory, we regret to say, a like disposition prevails to belittle, vituperate and defame our own Delegate in Congress, Mr. Jacobs. The practice of assailing the characters of our representative men prevails in this community to an extent greatly to be deprecated, and it has damaged our common interests to an extent beyond computation, in prejudicing strangers and capitalists against settlement or investment.
With our very limited available capital, credit is absolutely necessary to develop our vast natural resources. The Seattle Coal Company at one time mortgaged their property to San Francisco capitalists and expended the money in improving their works. The loan became due before they were ready to meet it. A newspaper contemporary in this city, with a grudge against Mr. Shattuck, the Superintendent, stated that if the mortgage was foreclosed the mortgagees would get nothing but 'a hole in the ground.' Knowing how sensitive capital is, Mr. Shattuck anticipated the disastrous consequences likely to result from such a publication, and started immediately overland to San Francisco. He succeeded in getting time for an expert coal engineer to be sent up to examine the mine. Upon that examination, the creditors were perfectly satisfied to renew the loan. But for the energetic action of Mr. Shattuck, the company would undoubtedly have been thrown into bankruptcy; our most valuable industry suspended for years, no railroad built, and no coal landed at our wharves at the rate of five hundred tons a day; all through a malicious report of a home newspaper.
“Knowing how sensitive capital is, Mr. Shattuck anticipated the disastrous consequences likely to result from such a publication.”
This 1878 editorial reflects an enduring tension in Seattle's history: the perceived 'civic toxicity' that supposedly scares off outside investment. Much like contemporary debates about Seattle’s reputation impacting its economic vitality, this writer argues that local 'viturperation' is a direct threat to the city's infrastructure and credit, placing the stability of the Seattle Coal Company above the watchdog role of the press.
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